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Haunted by Buzzer

Haunted by Buzzer

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I give up. I can’t get the song “Buzzer” out of my head. It’s been days now, and despite my attempts to put it out of my mind it’s affecting me at a deep emotional level. It’s not unusual for me to have a song running through my head now and again, but this one is a little different. I’m getting noodged (smile-out) to write about it, and it’s clear that I’m going to be haunted by this song until I do.

The song very obviously refers to Stanley Milgram’s famous experiment on authoritarianism, and is written from the perspective of a participant – one of the people who “pressed the buzzer” that appeared to give other people increasingly painful electrical shocks.

Controversy surrounded Stanley Milgram for much of his professional life as a result of a series of experiments on obedience to authority which he conducted at Yale University in 1961-1962. He found, surprisingly, that 65% of his subjects, ordinary residents of New Haven, were willing to give apparently harmful electric shocks-up to 450 volts-to a pitifully protesting victim, simply because a scientific authority commanded them to, and in spite of the fact that the victim did not do anything to deserve such punishment. The victim was, in reality, a good actor who did not actually receive shocks, and this fact was revealed to the subjects at the end of the experiment. But, during the experiment itself, the experience was a powerfully real and gripping one for most participants.

Below you can see a video and the lyrics to the song. A higher-quality version of the song is here at NPR, recorded live in concert from WXPN and Wiggins Park in Philadelphia on July 11, 2008. I would be surprised if Dar Williams doesn’t talk about “Buzzer” in the NPR interview, but I’m resisting listening to it until I’ve worked this through.

[youtube width=”400″ height=”343″]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vwvLzG51EWQ[/youtube]

Dar Williams, “Buzzer” (from “Promised Land”)

Sitting with the number eight platter at the restaurant,
Four twenty-nine for almost anything I want,
Add it up, it’s cheaper than the stuff I make myself,
I get by, I never needed anybody’s help,
And I tore out an ad and they told me that I
Would press the buzzer, press the buzzer,
At the graduate lab, they were doing some tests,
I pressed the buzzer, pressed the buzzer.

Ride the circle off of the highway.
Spiral into the driveway,
In the maze of old prefabs
They’ll be waiting at the lab.

I don’t know how everybody makes it through the daily drill,
Paint their nails, walk a dog, pay every bill,
I’m feeling sorry for this guy that I press to shock,
He gets the answers wrong, I have to up the watts
And he begged me to stop, but they told me to go,
I press the buzzer, I press the buzzer.
So get out of my head, just give me my line.
I press the buzzer, I press the buzzer.

Ride the circle off of the highway,
Spiral into the driveway,
In the maze of old prefabs
They’ll be waiting at the lab.

They called me back to the lab to discuss the test,
I put my earrings on, found my heels, wore a dress.
Right away I knew, it was like I’d failed a quiz
The man said “Do you know what a fascist is?”
I said, “Yeah, it’s when you do things you’re not proud of,
But you’re scraping by, taking orders from above.”
I get it now, I’m the face, I’m the cause of war
We don’t have to blame white-coated men anymore.

When I knew it was wrong, I played it just like a game,
I pressed the buzzer, I pressed the buzzer,
Here’s your seventy bucks, now everything’s changed,
I press the buzzer, I press the buzzer
But tell me where are your stocks, would you do this again?
I press the buzzer,
And tell me who made your clothes, was it children or men?
I press the buzzer.

Ride the circle off of the highway,
Spiral into the driveway,
In the maze of old prefabs
They’ll be waiting at the lab.

The opening of the song evokes the character of the singer, a self-reliant northeastern woman of the early sixties. She’s focused on the details of getting through each day, cutting corners, trying to be a responsible person. Seventy dollars for her participation would have been decent pay.

Right from the first chorus, there is something sinister about the people “waiting at the lab,” especially since they are surrounded by all the spirals and mazes in the chorus. The words are reinforced by the melody and the way the sound slows and expands, and the image of the people waiting in the middle of the maze is the last echoing image of the song.

She’s not without compassion. She’s not a sadist. She feels sorry, in a distant sort of way, for the man that she thinks she is training, or punishing, or torturing. His inability to get the answers right is associated structurally with a failure to meet everyday stresses and challenges; an implied judgment is yoked to a certain kind of empathy.

When he begs her to stop, she is told by an authority figure (one of the white-coated men, no doubt) to go on. And she does, without much further comment except the repetition of “I press the buzzer” throughout the rest of the song.

She would have been one of the majority who continued to press the buzzer (the button, the shocker) up to the limits of the experiment. I wonder if this song drew from the testimony of one of the actual participants. Imagine how horrible it would be to realize that you were capable of doing something like this, and not even under any dire choice or extraordinary sense of necessity, but just because there was an authority figure that told you it was all right and released you from attaching any sense of personal ethics and responsibility to your actions.

What a setup. What a perfect, horrifying setup.

It’s no big surprise that the Milgram experiment was controversial. It was a terrible thing to do to people, and I wouldn’t be surprised if some people were affected by it for the rest of their lives. I would be devastated to learn such an ugly truth about myself. But there were some, later, that were thankful for the experience; they learned a deep-down lesson.

62% wouldn’t refuse to continue? The results shocked the world. For many, it seemed to explain how Hitler could have transformed the “good Germans” into a nation that could condone and participate in the events of World War II.

I have always wondered what I would have done. The experiment itself has a high heuristic function, so once you know about it you can never really be sure what you would have done if you had not known about it. I think I would have protested, and then refused to continue – but I have never been totally and absolutely sure. That faint uncertainty in the background adds to my horror and sadness about the experiment – and probably makes the song more emotionally resonant and powerful. Milgram’s study of obedience to authority brought many insights that have been used for good – and for evil – in the years since.


For me, the song centers on the line “we don’t have to blame white-coated men anymore.” It comes after the realization of what has really happened here. Standing there, having failed the life quiz, dressed up in heels and a dress, to realize… But there is a bit of cognitive dissonance here. Yes, she admits it – “I get it now, I’m the face of war” but that doesn’t let off the “white-coated men” at all. Not at all. Mengele did experiments. The U.S. government has done some fairly awful experiments too. And there is a lot of debate in scientific circles about utilizing the results of experiments when human suffering has been involved. Even when the results are valid, it makes one complicit in what was done to achieve those results.

There is a vague undercurrent of anti-intellectualism in the song, which I understand because it strikes back at judgment. “You think you’re so much better than me? You think you’re so ethical. You’re not any better than me. You’d do the same, you people waiting at the lab.” There is a challenge here. “If I’m the fascist,” she seems to be saying, “then as I ask myself, ask yourself too: In what ways are you doing the same? Tell me about your stock portfolio, tell me about who makes your clothes, children or men! Have you stopped to consider all the many compromises we make in our lives every day, the ones that support human suffering under authoritarian power? I’m guilty, but you won’t even think about how you are part of the same system, how you shunt off the responsibility of it.”

An aspect of the Milgram experiment that has always bothered me is how Milgram staged it. Obviously, he couldn’t have Gestapo-uniformed people as the authority figures. I always thought it was an interesting choice to select scientists, people who looked like doctors, maybe. That’s a comment on the scientific community, and on the medical profession – isn’t it? – that they can be switched out for Nazis so easily.

And a further thing. I’ve never been completely satisfied with the explanations given about why a majority of the people continued to administer the shocks. There may be a very small minority who are sadists. Then there are the people who would start to feel uncomfortable. At what point would each person need to be urged to continue? And WHY would they continue? Really why? In his 1974 article, “The Perils of Obedience,” Milgram said:

The legal and philosophic aspects of obedience are of enormous importance, but they say very little about how most people behave in concrete situations. I set up a simple experiment at Yale University to test how much pain an ordinary citizen would inflict on another person simply because he was ordered to by an experimental scientist. Stark authority was pitted against the subjects’ strongest moral imperatives against hurting others, and, with the subjects’ ears ringing with the screams of the victims, authority won more often than not. The extreme willingness of adults to go to almost any lengths on the command of an authority constitutes the chief finding of the study and the fact most urgently demanding explanation.

Ordinary people, simply doing their jobs, and without any particular hostility on their part, can become agents in a terrible destructive process. Moreover, even when the destructive effects of their work become patently clear, and they are asked to carry out actions incompatible with fundamental standards of morality, relatively few people have the resources needed to resist authority.

The participants were not urged with persuasion. Only these statements were used, and in this order:

  1. Please continue.
  2. The experiment requires that you continue.
  3. It is absolutely essential that you continue.
  4. You have no other choice, you must go on.

The experiment was halted if the participant expressed a desire to stop after all 4 statements. Otherwise, it was continued to the maximum of three 450-volt shocks. Other scientists have confirmed the consistency of the results: 61–66 percent, regardless of time or place, will continue.

How is this to be explained? Really?

What we have are theories, and despite the evidence I see – even from the pseudo-religious right and the flag-wavers and all of those groups who hand over their critical faculties to an outside authority, I’m not entirely convinced by either the conformity theory or the agentic state theory.

The theory of conformism comes from the work of Soloman Asch. It says that someone who has neither the ability nor the expertise to make decisions will let their in-group’s hierarchical authorities make the decisions. I call this the theory of the follower. It is everywhere around us, but it runs counter to what I see as America’s attempt to create a society of free individuals.

The agentic state theory is where Milgram went, and it says that under uncritical obedience an individual starts to view him/herself as the instrument for carrying out someone else’s wishes (an authority – a person, a group, an ideology, a god) and therefore no longer sees himself as responsible for his actions. It does make sense to me that once such a fundamental viewpoint change has happened, everything essentially bad about simple obedience to authority follows.

Both of these are descriptive. They don’t provide much on how to counteract some of the negative aspects of complicance with perceived authority. We desperately need some insights on how to break these tendencies. They tried to do it in the late sixties – there were some who really tried. It was a failure, ultimately.

I’ve sometimes wondered if the participants might have been frightened for themselves. In a context where someone was being hurt, the leverage of intimidation might have been under-analyzed. “Better him than me,” right? There is a subtle threatening aspect to certain forms of authority. Could a quick cost-benefit speculation figure into this at all? Did they feel that they could be punished in some way if they did not obey, if they were not compliant? Or are the majority of people really that easily manipulated?

This song can’t help but remind me of the mechanisms of social control at work in America today.

We often assume that there is some kind of ubiquitous “They” who determine what the “right thing to do” might be. “They” are rarely identified…

We’ve already allowed so much, but our fanaticism in various realms of ideology have been, and will continue to be, so very destructive. In college, I thought the theories that talked about “control of the masses” were quaint. That only seemed to apply to crazy places like the USSR. (I was young….)

Preachers of the past might have said that we are losing our souls, but some of the powerful reconstructionists and literalistic bible-thumpers and last-days people and others among the pseudoreligious right are among the most hurtful and powerful authoritarians that we have. They’re no help at all. And we worship Money – the circulation of capital leaving a a slash and burn zone whose results we are just beginning to harvest. And we have dehumanized other citizens of Earth as though they were some demonic Other to ourselves.

Education was my hope. Let’s just say that I’m not as optimistic about that anymore.

We have already nodded to torture and illegal surveillance and oppression and grandiose imperial ambitions and seizure of natural resources and so on and so on and so on. Our crimes are immense. We’re just trying to get through the day. Other people are in control, and it’s up to them. Many of us don’t even bother to find out about the issues. We haven’t thought about the results very much until it hit our pocketbooks. I wonder if anyone will ever describe us as the “good Americans.” What Milgram proved is that the Germans weren’t any worse than us.

We press the buzzer.

(Addendum after the first posting: Dar Williams did talk about “Buzzer” in the NPR interview. She described the experiment, and said that she has thought about it often over the years since she first found out about it in college. Later, she accidentally rear-ended a woman in a traffic accident and, because the woman was from New Haven, it reminded her about the Milgram experiment. Talking to her gave Dar Williams the outline of the character in the song. She felt that she was being responsible by doing what “she was supposed to do.” Then, having realized what that really meant, the woman was sensitized to that dynamic and wouldn’t participate in it again. It was transformative.)

Tyrant

Tyrant

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“This and no other is the root from which a tyrant springs; when he first appears he is a protector.” – Plato

On the Gospel of War

On the Gospel of War

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I stumbled across a great post at live. laugh. love.

As a person trying to do things to make this world a better place, it makes me very angry to read the glorification of violence and death in violence as something done out of love and endorsed by God. Loving your neighbor as yourself does not include trying to kill them in the first place. In a global sense, aren’t we all neighbors? Aren’t we all brothers and sisters? Seems to me that if you are going to love your neighbor as yourself, it is a prerequisite to try to not kill your neighbor. It makes the loving a little easier.

So, please (gently, non-violently, and in love) take your red, white, and blue wrapped bible and stick it.

Evangelical Atheists Oppose Christian Nationalism

Evangelical Atheists Oppose Christian Nationalism

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I would like to see more opposition to the (so-called) christian nationalism (or dominionism) movement that has such a destructive effect on the American values of liberty, justice, and freedom.

Opposition from the perspective of atheism(s) is one method:

As an “out atheist,” Collette-Van Deraa said she often feels scorned as the other – “capital O in quotes.”

“There are misconceptions that atheists hate anyone who is in organized religion, or that atheists are baby killers or old-people killers,” she said. “There is a sense that atheists to some extent can’t be sensitive to the spiritual views of others.”

Though theologically not a religious group, the courts have increasingly ruled atheism deserves the same protections.

“And it should,” said Derek H. Davis, a Baptist who has written about atheism and is dean of the college of humanities and graduate school at University of Mary-Hardin Baylor in Texas. “Nonreligion as a worldview needs to be treated like a religious worldview in terms of giving people protections to live out their conscience.”

A cyborg alliance across groups that would suffer should the ideas of dominionist movement gain further traction would be helpful. The issue of net neutrality has shown that there can be unlikely alliances between people and groups who agree on little else, but can work together on a specific issue. Right now, many decent people are being manipulated into giving up many of the central messages of christianity – compassion, forgiveness (and perhaps most importantly) kindness toward others.

I was involved with the JWs for many years; their rule-based authoritarian regime looks less and less “fringy” in American life. Just when it seemed (to me, at least) that we were actually moving toward a society of freedom and justice for all, intolerance and hate went on the upswing.

From within organized religion, spiritual leaders of various paths must raise their voices to oppose fear-hate-control religious movements – and remind their people of the ethical paths of wisdom and compassion within their diverse disciplines. You can’t force spiritual insight or affinity using the methods and ideas that are antithetical to the whole point, just as you just can’t force “democracy” at gunpoint and expect that it will be democracy.

Whether by opposition or better example, the time is now to hold the manipulation up to the light. Atheism is not the only position to take, but the rights of those who do not believe in the God of contemporary hardline right-wing-affiliated Christianity matter just as much as anyone else in America. There is plenty of ammunition to support atheism these days – especially if you actually associate dominionists and other such power-mongers with God. (We’ll leave the issues of hypocrisy and cynicism to the side for the moment. I personally believe that it’s really all about the power and the money.)

There is no “generic” atheist. There are atheists who oppose any notion of God, there are atheists who are just not interested in ideas about God, there are atheists who are more humble toward religious reality than the ones who thump their chests about it, there are atheists who believe God is dead, there are atheists who see atheism as a religious position, there are atheists who really only oppose the views of God to which they have been exposed. There is a diversity of opinion on any given issue, except that – overall – there is some agreement that agenda of the christian nationalists should be opposed on the basis of freedom of (and freedom from) religion. This is something that affects everyone (even christians!). Americans should not be forced to be christian. The particular pseudo-christianity that is being shoved into being is powerful insult upon injury.

Once when Jesus and His disciples were traveling to Jerusalem, they were refused lodging in a Samaritan village. “And when His disciples James and John saw this, they said, ‘Lord, do You want us to command fire to come down from heaven and consume them, just as Elijah did?’ But He turned and rebuked them, and said, ‘You do not know what manner of spirit you are of. For the Son of man did not come to destroy men’s lives but to save them.’ And they went to another village” (Luke 9:54-56).

The results of the recent election give me hope, but when you consider the wide range of Republican offenses, the numbers were still very close. Too close. It should have been a landslide in every race. Now is the time for Democrats to show what they can do – and there is a lot to do. If they are successful across many fronts, perhaps this country can begin to reorient itself, to recover and thrive. The damage to our system of government and to our citizens has been great. The next several weeks will be very dangerous as the last session of the current Congress tries to push through whatever it can while Republicans still hold the majority.

Americans shouldn’t be traveling with people who want to regulate the whole country under one theology, especially this theology of power and control. The power-hungry manipulators (of any religion) who use religion as a tool to control the masses have missed the central messages of faith. This reality resonates with people of deeper and kinder and more loving faith – in American, in the Middle East, and all over the world. If a messiah or prophet showed up, for the first or second or thousandth time, these would be the first in line to scapegoat, jail, institutionalize, behead, hang, or stone her/him to death. And in the name of God, too.

If there really is a God of Love, I say that God weeps to see what is said and done in God’s name.

“I pray you, Lord, make me taste by love what I taste by knowledge; let me know by love what I know by understanding”
— Anselm of Canterbury (1033-1109)

“What is hateful unto you, do not do unto your neighbor. The rest is commentary” –Hillel the Elder

atheism

Fox News Hides Apocalyptic Mirror

Fox News Hides Apocalyptic Mirror

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What’s the appropriate reaction to something like this? Check it out.

On the August 16 edition of Fox News’ Your World, host Neil Cavuto interviewed Christian author Joel C. Rosenberg, whom he identified only as a “Middle East analyst,” regarding a recent Iranian “Holocaust cartoon contest,” and why “many in the Western media aren’t seeing” that Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is as dangerous as Adolf Hitler. During the interview, Rosenberg warned of Ahmadinejad’s “apocalyptic mind-set,” asserting that he “is saying … that the end of the world is rapidly approaching and that it’s his mission to bring it about by destroying Israel and … the United States.” But neither Cavuto nor Rosenberg disclosed, as Media Matters for America has noted, that Rosenberg is the author of a book laying out his vision of the Apocalypse, or that Rosenberg has claimed that he was invited to the White House, Capitol Hill, and the CIA to discuss the Rapture and the Middle East, with White House aides purportedly marveling over how the apocalyptic events described in his novels keep coming true.

From the interview:

ROSENBERG: He just signed a $1 billion deal with Russia to buy missiles and arms from Moscow. He is sending $100 million a year to Hezbollah. He is building the arsenal and the alliance to destroy Israel and to wipe out the United States, and that’s what’s so dangerous. People don’t appreciate yet, particularly in the media –Mike Wallace for sure — don’t appreciate or understand the evil that is rising in Iran, and that’s what I’m trying to write about in novels. That’s what I’m trying to talk about — is the religious, end-of-the-world, apocalyptic mind-set that Ahmadinejad has (my emphasis). You can’t negotiate with someone, ultimately, who believes it’s his mission to end the world.

So one of the criticisms is the “apocalyptic mind-set”. Who is this speaking again?

According to Media Matters,

On the July 19 edition of the Jay Sekulow Live! radio program, Rosenberg said his book The Ezekiel Option (Tyndale House Publishers, July 2005) is “based on a 2,500-year-old Bible prophecy — Ezekiel chapters 38 and 39 — in which Russia teams up with Iran, Lebanon, Syria, and a number of other Muslim countries to destroy Israel in what Ezekiel calls ‘the last days.’ ” Rosenberg added: “It’s too soon to say, honestly, that Ezekiel 38 and 39 are coming true, but I think it’s drawing a lot of interest in what the Bible has to say about future events in that part of the world, given the parallels to those prophecies.” Additionally, in a column posted on July 17 on the leftbehind.com website, Rosenberg purported to break down the prophecy from Ezekiel by listing “what to … watch[] for.” For his final bullet point, he wrote: “Even the G8 issued a statement defending Israel’s right to exist. But the Scriptures are clear, Israel will be totally alone when Russia and Iran attack.”

And during a segment on the July 26 edition of CNN’s Live From … discussing the potential coming of the Apocalypse, as indicated by current conflicts in the Middle East, host Kyra Phillips asked Rosenberg whether she needed “to start taking care of unfinished business and telling people that I love them and I’m sorry for all the evil things I’ve done.” Rosenberg replied, “Well, that would be a good start.”

Still not convinced? Check out his blog entry for today:

ABC PREPARING PRIME TIME SPECIAL, “ARE WE LIVING IN THE LAST DAYS?”: Also, Billy Graham on recent events in the Middle East

My comment:

Didn’t you just depict the “religious, end-of-the-world, apocalyptic mind-set” of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as evil? How is mirroring the same view a good, or even Christian, thing? The role of a Christian is to serve and to love others.


The Ezekiel Option Epicenter: Why current rumblings in the middle east will change your future

“Taking the Christ out of Christmas”

“Taking the Christ out of Christmas”

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This whole new thing about taking away Christmas is such a lie.

There isn’t anyone anywhere saying you mustn’t say Merry Christmas.
The ACLU has fought for Falwell on religious liberty issues and in fact fought for the boys who handed out candy canes with bible verses despite the misleading statements of the so called “religious” right. Doesn’t anyone remember Jesus’ warning about false prophets?

They are just keeping us fighting about these hot-button issues – and even lying about them – while meanwhile doing much more serious things that every christian should be alarmed about and against if they are truly christian.

There is nothing wrong with including everyone and saying happy holidays. I beg you to do a little research before judgment.

Where do you see anyone opposing the expression of christian beliefs?

As a former JW, what I remember is this. We didn’t celebrate Christmas. I had to sit out when the school choir sang Christmas songs. I don’t remember any Hanukkah songs, much less Ramadan or the pagan Yule. I remember not being able to participate when art class made ornaments and cards. I remember not being included. I was a christian too, albeit a fringe one.

Today, my son performs in a christmas program, makes christmas cards and ornaments at school. In his previous school, they even had international students saluting the american flag – parents too shy or polite or frightened to make an issue of it.

Everything is oriented around Christmas. If you want to be critical, it’s the materialism that cuts into the message.

These lies about the left and the ACLU etc are very unchrist-like and very much against the christian message. What could be more christian than to be kind and respectful? What does it cost you to say Merry Christmas, or a blessed Ramadan, or Happy Hanukkah, or have a wondrous Yule? And is it so terrible for someone, knowing they have a mixed audience, to honor all sacred traditions by saying Happy Holidays?

This whole attack is based on a lie. No-one is opposing Christmas – it’s one of the most entrenched traditions of the US. I only wish people were defending freedom of religion, our national fiscal responsibility, the Geneva conventions, and basic values like these. But noooooooo, there is only this horrible projection onto the left – who, incidentally, are the ONLY ones fighting for religious freedom in this country right now – that the left wants to take away Christmas! Give me a break! There are a lot of christians on the left – they perhaps don’t parade it (do you remember what Jesus said about that?). And there are agnostics and atheists too. And there are people with religious convictions other than Christian.

I’m getting emails every day now about this Merry Christmas thing. How the masses are so easily misled – where are your minds?